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Big-Dollar Estimates at Scottsdale

OLD ENGLISH The presale estimate of this 1957 Triumph TR3 is from $45,000 to $65,000.Credit
Alejandro Rodriguez/Gooding & Company

FOR several years, the collector car market has had a split personality. Great blue-chip cars have found eager bidders paying record prices at auction, while cars a notch below have often gone wanting. The gulf in dollars separating the best and the rest has continued to widen.

Simultaneously, there is a gulf between the results of the two leading auction weeks, at Pebble Beach in California in August and around Scottsdale, Ariz., in January. They used to be roughly equivalent in dollar volume, with Scottsdale, on the strength of Barrett-Jackson in its $100 million heyday, sometimes even surpassing the more tony Pebble Beach. In the last several years, though, the rarest and most expensive merchandise has generally crossed the block in Pebble Beach.

This doesn’t mean, however, that Scottsdale — where sales begin in earnest this week — is where collectors go to dispose of their B-list cars. As the site of the first major events of a new year, the Arizona auctions are often the barometer of the market. And because the top of the market seems to need no barometer at the moment (the nearly $200 million in sales last August in Pebble Beach silenced the pessimists), most inquiring eyes will be on the midrange and entry-level cars where the vitality at the top of the market seems to be trickling down, as evidenced by the uniformly ambitious presale estimates in the Arizona auction catalogs.

RM Auctions, Gooding & Company and Bonhams publish catalogs with presale estimates. Russo & Steele, Barrett-Jackson and Silver do not. Here are a few entry and mid-level cars with particularly strong estimates:

1964 PORSCHE 356SC SUNROOF COUPE Porsche fans often cite the last of the 356 line in coupe form with a sunroof as one of the cars they’d like to own and drive on a regular basis. This one at Bonhams appears to be from California with the rare and desirable sunroof option and higher horsepower engine in the sought-after colors of red and black. Still, its estimate of $100,000-$120,000 seems stiff. This was Speedster money not that many years ago.

Photo

FASTBACK This 1965 Shelby GT350 is expected to sell from 225,000 to $275,000.Credit
Darin Schnabel/RM Auctions

1965 SHELBY GT350 FASTBACK The 1965 Shelby GT350 is the purest and most performance-oriented of the Mustangs modified by Carroll Shelby. Not as one-dimensional as other 1960s pony cars, GT350s could brake and handle credibly as well as go fast in a straight line. Before the economic meltdown, these were bumping $300,000, but soon fell to about $150,000. The estimate of $225,000-$275,000 at RM is close to top of the market.

1967 CHEVROLET CORVETTE STING RAY ROADSTER Big-block Corvette Sting Rays that still have their original matching-numbers engines are rare, given the propensity of their original owners to blow them up on the drag strip. This particular car, offered by RM, was restored by a Long Island Corvette expert, Kevin Mackay, and looks to be authentic, as its many awards attest. At the height of the Corvette market in late 2007, great 427/435 convertibles were selling for nearly $200,000. The consigner is looking for the brass ring here with an estimate of $225,000-$300,000, which given the obvious quality, doesn’t seem nutty.

1967 CADILLAC ELDORADO This was a ground-breaking front-wheel-drive car from General Motors, released a year after the equally stunning 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado. The Eldorado, which many market observers have considered undervalued for as long as anyone can remember, is a tour de force from the designer William Mitchell. This 18,000-mile example could well be the best one on the planet. If it is, its $40,000-$50,000 estimate from Gooding (easily double what ‘67 Eldos typically bring) might actually seem conservative.

1957 TRIUMPH TR3 The little, pop-eyed, bulldoglike TR3 was capable of dusting nearly any contemporary MG and could also give more expensive 6-cylinder Austin-Healeys a hard time. The Triumphs are rugged, charming and great fun, and they’ve always been solidly entry-level. This example, which Gooding says is largely unrestored, has a presale estimate of $45,000-$65,000, about double the usual selling prices.

The auctions start with Barrett-Jackson on Tuesday, Russo & Steele on Wednesday and Bonhams and RM on Thursday. The Gooding and Silver auctions start on Friday. Mecum is the only major company without an Arizona sale, but it will be busy getting ready for an auction of almost 2,000 cars the following week in Kissimmee, Fla.

A version of this article appears in print on January 15, 2012, on Page AU2 of the New York edition with the headline: Big-Dollar Estimates at Scottsdale. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe